Amazing Grace
by WeepingAngelXIII
Summary: Grace Holoway is looking for the Doctor.  She knows that something is wrong with her, and so she sets out to find out why.


My name is Grace Holloway. I'm a doctor. I was born in San Francisco in 1968. I'm not married and I don't have a boyfriend. I live in Paris at the moment, and if what I've found out is true (I'm talking even remotely true here); if it's really, really true:

I'm screwed.

Anyway, giving you a bit of background on the situation, it's about me and Lee. OK, and for those who don't know, Lee is one of my closest friends, although talk about chalk and cheese. Anyway the only real thing that struck up our friendship was the Doctor and what happened on the turn of the millennium. That's another story though. The thing was, me and Lee noticed something weird going on, but it took us a while to realise. Now we're pretty sure though. It's 2210.

I'm 242 years old and I haven't aged since I was 33.

Lee too. He's 228 and still looks 17.

What the hell is going on here?

You'll never guess who we ran into today anyway.

Lee is now the only person left who I can trust with anything. He is like me and is probably one of the few people left who can actually remember the turn of the millennium, and he's still someone familiar. Before I continue I think I'd better point out that Lee and I are _not _a couple. We never have been. We're just friends. I never got over the Doctor I think on that front. That's why I'm a single girl of 242. Bet you haven't seen many of those around.

Everything's moved on since the Twenty-First Century. Children nowadays are taught it in their history lessons. It feels weird to suppose that we once lived there. Still, Lee and I have carried on as we always have done. We've maintained places at UNIT (and no one has asked why we have over a two hundred year membership). We move around though. That's why we're in Paris, but both of us have spent so long looking for the only person we know will be able to help us.

The Doctor: he'll know why we can't die.

It's not just we can't age. We can't die either. In 2009 I was working in UNIT Manhattan and I was shot by a dalek. Initially and for many years after I thought it was just luck and that the beam hadn't hit me properly, just stunning me for a while. Now I see though that it wasn't luck, it was my inability to die. Something was keeping me alive far beyond my natural life span and even healing fatal injuries. I wanted to find out why.

This brings me back to today, I suppose. I'd gone out shopping (shopping in Paris is one of the best therapies ever) and nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first. Everybody hurried around not giving a care in the world for anyone else and I saw something unfamiliar yet so familiar. A police box. I had never known there to be a 1960s police box there before and I had been down into town many times before.

_It's him! It must be him._

Forgetting everything else I ran to the police box and put down my bags at my feet. I ran my fingers over the wood of the door, feeling something living within it.

_Your answers are all here, Grace, _I thought. _Everything you wanted to know about yourself is here. Go in. Ask him._

It still took me a very long time standing at that door.

_What if he's forgotten me? How will I know it's him? I haven't seen him for two hundred years. How long has it been for him? Will he have met me yet? What if he's not the Doctor I knew? Will he have my answers?_ I hesitated.

_Well, you're never going to know just standing here are you? _I took a deep breath and opened the door.

It was the TARDIS but not as I remembered it. It felt like corral. But that wasn't the cause of my gasp. The man standing at the console was not my Doctor. I didn't doubt that it was in fact him. It was just that my worry was if he would remember me. He was a time traveller after all. How would he know?

"Doctor," I asked tentatively as he looked up at me.

"Grace?" he stared. Somewhere within me there was a sigh of relief. OK. He remembered me. There was a long silence as if both of us seemed to be trying to think of something to say.

"Hi," I decided on.

"Hi," he replied.

"You changed again."

"Twice," he replied. He looked back at his console. "Did I get the wrong coordinates again? I was going for Twenty-Third Century France." I shook my head.

"No. You're right."

"Then how...?"

"That's what I came to ask you," I said. "I thought you may be able to explain."

I walked further into the TARDIS and perched on the edge of a battered old chair. I looked down at my hands and addressed my story to them.

"It's both me and Lee. Do you remember the millennium and the Master?"

"Yeah..." replied the Doctor slowly, as though wondering where this story was going.

"Well, after the Master killed me I haven't been the same. 2009: I was working in Manhattan (in UNIT, actually) and we were stormed by daleks. I was shot down and killed. Explain that to me, Doctor. I'm alive and there was no TARDIS to resurrect me. I'm 242 years old and I haven't aged since..." I stopped, realising I was beginning to rant. I looked up at the Doctor. His expression was hard to read. He looked somewhat distant but his eyes were definitely focused on me. "Doctor..." He gave me a look of someone startled out of a dream.

"Mm? Yes, yes. Sorry. I... Can't die?" I shook my head.

"No," I said. "Neither can Lee. Both of us made a promise to find you to see if you could help tell us what..."

"Just like Jack..."

"What?" I leant forwards. "Who's Jack?"

"He's supposed to be dead too," said the Doctor, and sat down beside me. I looked sideways at him.

"But who is he?" I asked. "What happened?"

"The same. To save you time was reversed so that you could live through your death and the TARDIS returned life to you. Jack was killed and the TARDIS brought him back too, but she was acting through someone else."

"And?"

"Jack became something outside time and like you just carried on through time without..." He gestured around a little as he searched for a word. "...continuing."

"So he couldn't die."  
"Yeah."

"So what happened to him?"

"Now?" The Doctor looked thoughtful. "I don't know where he is. Could be anywhere, but I'm sure I'll run into him from time to time: usually do."

"So what can I do?" I asked the Doctor. "I still don't get it. Why...?"

"Because the TARDIS brought you back it's brought you back a lot longer than you should live."

"Will I stay like this forever?" The Doctor shrugged.

"I don't know," he said. "There's no way to tell. Maybe because the TARDIS wasn't channelled through anyone when you and Lee were brought back, maybe you're not alive permanently like Jack, but," he said, "honestly I don't know."

I debated this in my head. Even the Doctor didn't know. How would we ever? I thought about Lee and then back to myself. Eternity was a long time. What could we do with all that? I knew Lee would definitely get bored of that. I sighed and looked at the Doctor.

"Do you know what I should do?" I asked.

"Well," he said. "Next time I see Jack I'll tell him to contact you. I can't think of anything else really that useful, sorry."  
"That's OK," I said. "I'll live. I've got no choice." I stood up. "Thanks anyway," I said and kissed him on the cheek. Leaving quickly, so I didn't have to look at his face I stopped outside the TARDIS door. I'd have to talk to Lee. We had a lot of planning to do. Maybe if one day we could know really what makes us like this we might find something to do about it.

What?

I didn't know yet.

But I swore I would find out.

G.H.


End file.
